


driving all night chasing some mirage

by angelica_church_schuyler



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bruce Springsteen References, EddieMonth2k19, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Making Out, Pining, Road Trips, Running Away, Sharing a Bed, carly-rae-jepsen-run-away-with-me-sax.mp3, you can infer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21571147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_church_schuyler/pseuds/angelica_church_schuyler
Summary: Richie's been having day dreams like this for years. Eddie shows up at his bedroom window in the middle of the night, there's swelling music, dramatic confessions of unrequited, undying love, a kiss filled with years of yearning and craving and friendship and love, and then they drive off into the sunset like they're in a fucking Springsteen song while the credits roll and an upbeat Psychedelic Furs cover ofBring It On Home To Meplays.The fact that they aren’t currently making out and he can’t hear any new wave/alt rock bands covering a 60s soul standard makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he isn’t dreaming this time.Or, Eddie and Richie run away together.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	driving all night chasing some mirage

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i'm not American. all of the geography in this comes from google maps.
> 
> title is from The Promised Land by Bruce Springsteen

"It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate." - Bruce Springsteen, _For You_

__

3:02am, November 28th, 1994

There’s a blur at Richie’s window.

The blur had woken Richie up with its incessant tapping on his window. He squints, which doesn’t really help, but he can make out that it’s human-shaped, short, and it’s pitch dark outside his window but he thinks that it's wearing something red.

“It’s me, dickhead!” the Blurry Person says. “Open the window.”  
Richie stumbles out of bed and begins tapping his hand at the window in an attempt to find the lever. The Blurry Person - who he's pretty sure is Eddie - huffs.

“Where the fuck are your glasses, you idiot?”

It’s definitely Eddie.

After bumping into his bedside table a few times and dropping his glasses before he finally manages to put them on, Richie opens the window. Eddie smiles at him.  
“Hey.”  
“Hi, what’s goin’ on? God, it’s so early...late? What time is it?”  
Eddie’s eyes are wide, and there’s something in them that Richie only barely recognises. It’s been a long time since he saw Eddie look like this. For a brief, guilty moment he feels afraid.  
“It’s 3am.”  
“Why the fuck are you outside my window at 3am?”  
“I’m leaving. I, um, I guess I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Richie stops, trying to process Eddie’s words. “You’re...what? Like, leaving my house, or like leaving…”  
“Derry. I’m running away, I guess.”  
Richie blinks. “Oh, shit, okay...uh...wow”  
“Yeah.”

Richie's been having day dreams like this for years. In his head, Eddie shows up outside his bedroom window in the middle of the night. There's swelling music, dramatic confessions of unrequited, undying love, a kiss filled with years of yearning and craving and friendship and love, and then they drive off into the sunset like they're in a fucking Springsteen song while the credits roll and an upbeat Psychedelic Furs cover of _Bring It On Home To Me_ plays.  
The fact that they aren’t currently making out and he can’t hear any new wave/alt rock bands covering a 60s soul standard makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he isn’t dreaming this time.

“Can I come?”

It just slips out, honestly. He’s always thought that he would follow Eddie to the ends of the earth (while complaining about sore feet until Eddie made him stop so they could buy orthopedic shoes or something) so, really, it just makes sense.

Eddie doesn’t seem to hear him. “Yeah, I know, it seems crazy, but I have a plan, a good plan, I know what I’m doing, and-and you know, I-I figured you would wanna know before I love, and I wanted you to know, I didn’t want you to think I was like dead or anything, and wait what did you say?”  
“Where are we going?” Richie asks.  
_“We?_ You wanna come?”  
“Yeah, I don’t have anyone to bug if you’re not here. Well, there’s Mike, but he’s so nice I feel guilty making fun of him.” He pauses. “Would you be okay with that? With me...tagging along?”  
The confusion on Eddie’s face gives way to a smile. “Yeah, of-of course, I’m just...I didn’t expect it, but...that would be awesome!”  
“Great,” Richie grins. “I’ll get some stuff, give me, like, five, ten minutes?”  
“Okay.”  
“Get in here, it’s cold.”

It turns out they're going to New Jersey ("Home of the Boss!" Richie exclaims), and Richie feels a buzz in the air as he rushes to stuff some clothes in a bag. He still half-believes he’s dreaming - maybe the absence of music and a credits sequence is because he hasn’t watched _Some Kind Of Wonderful_ in a while and his subconscious has forgotten about it - but the cold wind from the still open window and the excitement and nerves bundling up in his stomach are too vivid to be a dream.  
So is the sound of Eddie’s voice, somewhere between measured and frantic.

“You should probably bring a bigger sweater. And some clothes for warmer weather, too, I know it’s cold now but it won’t always be. Your Walkman’s over there - of course you were looking for it, it’s not like you weren’t gonna bring it, you wouldn’t last two days without that thing. And make sure you bring enough tapes that you don’t get bored, ‘cause we’ll be on the road for a while and I’ve got our mixtape and all my tapes but who knows, you might wanna listen to something else and the only fucking good tapes gas stations carry is Queen’s Greatest Hits, and I've already got like, four copies. It's like my car spawns them out of thin air. Wait, is that a fanny pack?"

It is a fanny pack, that doesn't matter right now. Right now, he's thinking about his parents. He doesn’t want to imagine the look on his mother’s face when she wakes up and he’s not there. He tries not to imagine her outside the school, brow furrowed and arms wrapped around herself like Betty Ripsom’s mom, hoping to catch a glimpse of a kid who’ll never come back. “I have to let my parents know. I'll leave them a note. I’ll call them later. I think they’ve been expecting me to run away since I was about 8, so it’s not like they’ll be surprised." Noting the look on Eddie's face, he adds: "They won't say anything to your mom."

Eddie nods, not looking particularly reassured.

“Come on,” Richie adds. “They love you. If they know I’m with you, they’re not gonna be worried about a thing.”

And then Richie scribbles a hasty note to his parents (with some unwanted and honestly kind of unhelpful input from Eddie) and they’re on the road and it’s just like every dream Richie’s ever had. Eddie looks over at him and laughs as he turns the ignition. The car jumps to life, their mixtape starts blasting a Melissa Etheridge song, and the world has never been brighter.

4:16am, November 28th, 1994

_You are now leaving Derry, Maine_ the sign just past the Hanlon farm declares. _We hope you come back soon!_  
The sign can suck it, because Richie is never fucking coming back to this hellhole. Well, maybe for his dad’s birthday in June and for Christmas and stuff, but other than that he’s never stepping foot in this shithole again. He’s spending the rest of his life far, far away from here, leaving behind all his fears and insecurities and everything that ever made him hate himself, with his best friend _(his other half, a part of him that you couldn’t separate him from unless you cut him off like a limb or pried him from his cold, dead arms)_ by his side. 

“I know this probably seems impulsive,” says Eddie. “And I know I _can_ be impulsive, and usually when people run away it _is_ impulsive. But this isn’t. I’ve been planning this for a really long time, and I actually kinda know what I’m doing.” He pauses. “I mean, I’ll probably have to revise the plan a little now that you’re coming, but the point is, I do have a plan.”

Richie leans his head back onto the car seat headrest. Every hundred feet or so a street light illuminates his best friend’s face, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel, fluorescent white light revealing the manic, nervous energy Eddie is obviously trying to hide. “Alright, I’ll bite. Say, Eddie, what _is_ your ingenious plan?”  
Eddie takes a deep breath. “Okay, the whole thing is kind of a long story so I’ll tell you that when we stop, but the short version is today I-we’ll drive to New Jersey, we’ll stay in Howell, and we can stay there overnight. I have an aunt who lives in East Orange and she’s got me a job lined up there and she said I can stay with her. So I’ll work for a while, save up money, get my GED, and then I plan to go to college in New York. I guess I could stay in New Hampshire, they’ve got some great schools there, I mean fucking _Princeton’s_ there, but I could never get into Princeton and I’ve always wanted to go to New York and it’s so close so...I wanna go to New York.”  
“You’d fit so well in New York.”  
“You think?”  
“Yeah! The city that never sleeps! Fast, frantic, mildly aggressive, it’s perfect for you!”

Eddie smiles, tapping his fingers to the beat of the Paula Abdul song he’d convinced Richie to let him put on the mixtape. “You’d be good there, too.”  
“Hell yeah, I would.” He grins. “I’ve already got the accent down-pat. ‘Ayy, I’m wawkin’ ‘ere!’ ‘Bada-bing, bada-boom, capische?’ ‘Ay, Eds, let’s take a wawk down toidy-toid street. Oh, you don’t wanna wawk? That’s cool, we’ll catch a ca-ahb.’”  
“Jesus fucking Christ, Richie, that’s terrible,” Eddie says, his laughter ruining the disgusted tone he was going for. “I regret this already. I never should’ve brought you along.”  
“Aw, Eds, you don’t mean that.”  
“No,” he says softly. “I don’t.”  
Richie smiles. “Well, now that we’re all clear on that. How long till we can stop for breakfast? I want some good, New York style ‘cawfee’.”  
"It'll probably be shitty, Maine style 'cawfee', but we can use our imaginations."

7:02am, November 28th, 1994

Maine style coffee is, in fact, shitty.  
Richie puts much sugar in his that it’s probably more glucose than coffee, and even Eddie, who has black coffee running through his veins, screws up his face every time he takes a sip. But it’s still coffee.

After a very long ten minutes spent inside watching Eddie’s eye twitch at every possible health code violation, Richie had dragged them both back to the car, insisting that no, having the heat on would _not_ give them carbon monoxide poisoning (probably) and it was preferable to sitting in that death trap of a diner. For a while they eat their terrible breakfast and drink their awful coffee in silence, until Eddie speaks up.

“It’s pretty,” Eddie murmured. He’s looking straight ahead, somewhere past the diner, just above the horizon, his eyes unfocused.  
The juvenile part of Richie’s brain thinks _no,_ you’re _pretty!_ and if he were any more sleep deprived he would’ve said it out loud and then probably jumped in front of a car.  
Instead, he says “What?”  
Eddie gestures with the hand not holding a cup of boiling liquid. “The sunrise. It’s pretty. I’ve never really seen one before.”

Honestly, Richie had always thought sunrises were kind of overrated. They were pretty, sure, but not _that_ pretty. Not pretty enough to get up at ass o’clock in the morning just for a glimpse of a ball of gas and some orange light. He always found himself wishing he’d just stayed in bed and waited for the sunset.

This one is different. Yes, it;s ass o’clock in the morning and yes, part of him did wish he was still asleep, but he really doesn’t care. The slivers of light, gradually getting brighter every second, are golden. Rays of warm, comfortable light kiss his skin. From where he’s sitting, the sun is blocked by the diner roof, and it almost looks like the light are radiating from Eddie himself. Or maybe the UV rays are bouncing off his eyes, creating that golden-pink-orange-yellow kaleidoscope.

The soft golden glow makes everything look new, so brand new that for a second Richie thinks that maybe overnight God had destroyed the entire world and then recreated it and now he was here, watching it begin all over again. Specially recreated just for the two of them.

“Yeah,” he finally replies. “I guess it is nice.”

8:32 am, November 28th, 1994

In the stillness of the early morning and the gleam of the sunrise, it’s easy to pretend he and Eddie are the only ones awake, the only ones _alive,_ that the whole world is theirs and theirs alone.

With daylight comes waking, and the world around them begins stirring. The sound of alarms and the sun streaming in through open windows, alert the poor people inside that they’re late for work, that they have to hurry and get ready and get in the car, feeling the relief of realising that good traffic conditions mean they’ll make it just in time, not yet realising that to get there they’ll have to face the legendary road rage of some 18 year old prick in an obnoxiously blue muscle car.

“HEY JACKASS, EVER HEARD OF RIGHT OF WAY?” Eddie screams, leaning halfway out the window. “If we had crashed it would’ve been YOUR FAULT, BITCH! HOW’D YOU LIKE TO EXPLAIN OUR GRUESOME DEATHS TO OUR WEEPING MOTHERS, YOU FUCKING CU-”

God, Richie loves him so much.

Eddie takes a sharp right turn, ignoring the honks and middle fingers directed towards him. Eddie loves driving, but that doesn’t mean he's any good at it.

“Can you believe that guy?” he scoffs. “I mean, I had the right of the way there, he just fucking came out of _nowhere_ and he has the nerve to act like _I_ fucked up? WOW.”  
“Yeah, that's totally fucked up,” Richie says, trying to hide how hard he’s gripping his seat as Eddie slams on the brakes. “Hey, remind me how many times you had to retake your driving test?”  
“Shut the fuck up.”  
It was four times, and Richie still wondered who the hack driving instructor who finally passed him had been. Richie suspected he had a death wish, or maybe just wished death on everyone else in Derry. He could understand that.

Richie’s ponderings about Derry’s DMV employees are interrupted by Eddie yawning comically loudly next to him.

“Dude, you had, like, the blackest coffee I’ve ever seen like an hour ago, how are you still tired?”  
Eddie just shrugs, so, naturally, Richie pushes him.  
“Seriously, I mean, didn’t you get an extra shot too? _And_ one for the road?” He gasps, exaggerating for comedic effect that he knew Eddie would appreciate but pretend to hate. “Edward Anne Kaspbrak, did you lie to me about your coffee order? I can’t believe you. I thought our relationship was built on _trust!”_  
“I didn't _lie_ about my _coffee order,_ who the fuck would even do that? And who would be offended by that? That's so weird,” Eddie grumbles. “I know coffee is supposed to make you like energised and hyperactive and Ben always says it makes him really anxious, too -”  
“You’re already all of those things.”  
“I know, that's my point, it doesn’t _do_ anything. I do feel a little more...I don’t know, focused, I guess? So it doesn’t wake me up like it’s meant to, but like when I’m driving it’s easier to concentrate on the road and shit” - Richie had seen no evidence of that, but he decided not to bring that up - “Like, if I didn’t have that coffee I might be more distracted by the music playing or you talking or something and I’ll miss a turn and just fuck up the whole course, you know?”  
“Yeah, I get that,” Richie replies. “I can’t do directions, I start thinking about something and totally forget where I’m supposed to be going.”  
Eddie laughs at that. “Yeah, I fucking know, dude, you’ve gotten us lost how many times?”  
“Just as many times as you have, you hypocritical bitch.”

They continue like that for a while, Eddie babbling and Richie responding with some stupid remark and Eddie lobbying something much wittier back, usually while he was belly laughing and telling Richie he wasn’t funny.

Richie is looking at him too long, too _much_. He’s staring, practically gawking, looking over at Eddie every time he speaks and every time Eddie replies, gazing over his friend's bright eyes, squinting stupidly at his fingers as they tap frantically on the steering wheel.  
Even the overwhelming guilt and shame can’t make him tear his eyes away.

He has fucking Eddie Kaspbrak tunnel vision. People always said there was “light at the end of the tunnel”, but not if you’re Richie Tozier, no siree. If you’re Richie Tozier the only thing you’re gonna see in a tunnel is a boy in his late teens, short-statured and short-tempered, hair curly, eyebrows raised, staring at you like you’re nuts (which you are, because you’re so in love with him you can’t tear your eyes away, can't even breathe sometimes, is that what it's like to be him, you might wonder, to have an attack of something his mother calls asthma and you call pure panic?). You'd look to the end of the tunnel , where the light supposedly is, and you'd say, _first of all, why the fuck are we in a tunnel?_ And then he'd smile and tell you your shitty directions must have lead you guys here and you'd smile back and wonder how you survived what must have been six torturous years between birth and first grade without him by your side.

And then you'd think _well that's fucking gay_ and turn your attention back to the radio and sing along to Weezer obnoxiously loudly and purposefully off key.

"Rich," Eddie sighs. "I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you actually don't look a thing like Buddy Holly."  
Richie raises a hand to his chest in mock outrage. "Edward, I am _wounded!_ You know, I was actually just about to tell you that you're the spitting image of Mary Tyler Moore but I'll just go fuck myself, I guess."  
"No, there’s no _way_ I could pull off a miniskirt like she did."  
"Wanna test that idea?"

Eddie slaps him.

12:34pm, November 28th, 1994

It’s noon on the dot when Eddie interrupts the silence to ask if Richie’s hungry.

Obviously he is, because neither of them have eaten since that grotesque diner breakfast. So, naturally, they find an almost identical grotesque diner and eat there.

“I can’t believe I didn’t bring my own food,” Eddie grumbles into his patty melt. “Waste of money.”  
“Don’t think of it as a waste of money, think of it as buying an experience.”  
“What experience? The experience of listening to Tom Jones while I contract e coli?”  
“Yeah,” Richie grins. _”And_ getting to be the very first customers these guys have had who aren’t burying a body.”  
“Why do they keep playing Tom Jones? I’ve never met anyone who likes Tom Jones.”  
“It’s not unusual, Eds.”  
“Ignoring that,” Eddie says as he checks his watch.  
“Officially 18 yet?”  
“As of 11 minutes ago, yes.”

Richie’s answering whoop is so loud he imagines it probably woke up the cows he’d excitedly pointed out on the side of the road an hour or so ago. “Officially legal, baby, hell yeah!”  
Eddie grins back. “Hell yeah!”  
Richie slams his hand on the table. “Shit, your present!”  
“You got me a present?”  
“Yeah, duh, it’s in the car. I’ll be right back.”

As Richie rummages around in the car, his one duffle bag hidden underneath Eddie’s piles of suitcases, his mind wanders back to the look on Eddie’s face when he’d mentioned a gift. He was always surprised when Richie did things for him, like he didn’t expect it. Almost as if he didn’t think he _deserved_ it, which was fucking stupid because of _course_ he did. Richie thought he deserved everything. He wished he could give him that.  
Unfortunately, he was a broke high schooler, so he was left with giving him just less than everything and hoping to God that he’d like it.

Back in the diner, Eddie’s eyes narrow as he realises exactly what Richie's holding. “I _knew_ I saw you with a fanny pack! What the fuck, dude, you’re stealing my look!”  
“No, I'm not, I still think they’re butt-ugly, but I’ll admit they’re practical. Shoving all your shit in here was one of your many good ideas.”  
“How dare you, I’ve never had a good idea.”  
“Leaving Derry was a good idea,” Richie offers.  
“I’m not sure running away is ever a great idea,” Eddie counters, moving his eyes to the ground and scratching behind his ear. “So, is that my gift? I turn 18 and you buy me a fucking fanny pack?”  
“Yeah, what else are you gonna need?” Richie leans across the table and taps the zipper. “C’mon, open it!”  
“I am, hang on!” 

Eddie unzips the bag, spilling its contents onto the table. Laughing, he reaches out to rescue the pair of socks that had fallen dangerously close to the pile of ketchup on Richie’s plate. Examining them closely, he giggles again.  
“They’re driving socks, kinda,” Richie explains. “See, one says ‘gas’ and the other one says ‘clutch’.”  
“Yeah, no, I can see that,” Eddie says. “That’s super helpful, now I can remember which foot is which.”  
“Exactly!”

Eddie’s eyes fall on the little rectangles still half hanging out of the fanny pack. Quietly, he thumbs through the photos, a collection of Polaroids that Richie had been amassing for years. The photos featured all seven of the Losers, the number slowly and painfully thinning as the years went by. Looking over the pictures, Richie had had the guilty realisation that the two of them were usually together; even in shots with the others, the two of them would be next to each other, or have one behind the other giving them bunny ears, or they’d be staring at each other from opposite ends of the picture, completely ignoring an exasperated Stan stuck between them.  
Eddie picks up one of just the two of them. Stan had taken it, Richie remembers, and they must’ve been 13, maybe 14, crowded together on the Uris’ living room couch. Richie’s face is frozen in a grin and Eddie’s left hand is a blur of motion as he gestures wildly to articulate whatever point he was making about why _Return of the Jedi_ is actually the best Star Wars movie.

Eddie (the one sitting in front of him, not the one in the photo, that would be creepy) smiles at their younger selves before looking back up at Richie.  
“Thank you,” he says softly. “That’s...thanks, they’re really…”  
“You like it?”  
Eddie just nods, still looking at Richie with a strange look in his eye, and Richie has the urge to reach out and touch him - just to hold his hand, even just brush a finger against his, any contact at all, anything that might let out some of the feelings that threaten to burst out of him if Eddie keeps looking at him like that.

“We should do something,” Eddie says suddenly. “Like, take a detour and go do...something. Something fun and tourist-y.”  
“Sure,” Richie says, because what else is he supposed to say? “What’s near here?”  
“I’ll get the map, hold on.”

Their plates are pushed to the side, as far as they’ll go on the frankly comically small table, as Eddie spreads the map out in front of them. 

“So, we’re here,” he explains, placing half a french fry on the map to mark their spot. “On the I-95, just outside Fort Lee. And Howell, New Jersey, is...” he places the other half of the french fry on the map a few inches down - “right there.”  
Richie stares down at the space between the two fry halves, absent-mindedly tapping his knife against his chin until Eddie gently pulls it out of his hand, muttering something about how if he got cut with that ketchup and grime covered knife the wound would _definitely_ get infected and neither of them have health insurance and it could wipe out their whole savings.  
Richie’s never been good at reading maps. All the lines get crossed together and tangled up in his head. He doesn’t know where one city ends and the other begins, and don’t even get him started on all the little side streets and the fucking hieroglyphics that apparently symbolise _something_ but mean absolutely nothing to him. He knows that the half-fry that represents him and Eddie is near Fort Lee, which he remembers is where the George Washington Bridge connects New York and New Jersey. That could be fun and tourist-y, and they could even cross it and hang in New York for - holy shit, there’s a place called _Hicksville?_

It’s while he’s adding moving to the hilariously named Hicksville to his mental bucket list that he sees it, half-hidden by half a french fry.

“Eds,” he says, voice hushed, unable to look away from the name he’d only ever seen on album covers - that legendary name, written here in letters too small and unassuming to give away the greatness that spawned from that fabled land. “You didn’t tell me how close Howell is to Asbury Park.”

And just like that, the pilgrimage begins.

1:15pm, November 28th, 1994 - 39 ½ Institute Street, Freehold, New Jersey

People believe in a lot of things.

Some people believe in a covenant between a Divine Being and his chosen people; others believe a homeless, socialist carpenter was the son of said Being; some think that guy’s mom was sinless, favoured over every other woman in the world because of her unshakeable faith. Others think she was just a young girl chosen for a task she couldn’t hope to understand.

When it came to God, Richie wasn’t sure what he believed. But he knew he believed in a light, a guiding force universally understood. It brought people together, it had the power to make you cry, dance, laugh. Melodies that electrified every bone in your body. Lyrics that showed you who you were, mirrored how you felt, gently put a hand on your shoulder and told you that everything was gonna be okay - that it's not a sin to be glad you're alive, that someday you’d walk in the sun and case the promised land.  
Richie believed that light was embodied by a man, just an ordinary man, born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1949. A boy growing up in a working class family, a boy who dreamed of running away and never looking back, a man who understood love and pain and heartbreak and conveyed it like no other. A man named Bruce.

And now here he is, standing in front of the home Bruce had grown up in. It's smaller than he expected, almost quaint. Off-white, with soft blues around the windows and dark blue-grey on the roof. If he closes his eyes, or takes off his glasses, he can imagine it in black and white, can see the young man posing with a Cadillac outside of it.  
When he lived here, when he came back after writing an album that would launch him into the stratosphere, could he have ever imagined that in 20 years he would change the life of some awkward gay kid stuck in the middle of Nowhere, Maine?

“Do you think anyone lives there?” Eddie whispers. They both know the whispering isn’t technically necessary, but people whisper in holy places, and this is a holy place.  
Richie shrugs.  
“I couldn’t,” he continues, the same sense of awe Richie is feeling reflected in his eyes as he stares up at the house. “I’d be so scared to ruin it.”  
“...What? How could you _ruin_ it?”  
“I don’t know, like...it would feel like corrupting it or something.”  
“Like it wouldn’t be pure Bruce anymore?”  
“Exactly.”

That makes no sense to Richie, but Eddie is so excited and awestruck, and for some reason thinking so deeply about the idea of accidentally erasing all traces of Bruce Springsteen from Bruce Springsteen's childhood home, that he just lets it go. Instead, he nudges Eddie with his shoulder and offers him one side of his headphones, and they sit together in the middle of the road listening to the Boss sing., oblivious to anything outside this bubble.  
Almost like they've been blinded by the light.

5:07pm, November 28th, 1994 - The Stone Pony 

“There’s no way we’d get away with it.”  
“Look, if we were anywhere else I’d agree with you.” Richie leans closer to Eddie, ignoring the tingles spreading through his body when their forearms brush against each other. They’re squished against each other, having pushed two bar stools as close together as they could go. The Stone Pony has more people in it than he’s used to. Come to think of it, there’s probably more people in here right now than there’s ever been in any bar in Derry. And it’s a _Sunday._ “But this is _The Stone Pony!_ This is a magical, mysterious place.” He waves his hands around, wiggling his fingers in Eddie’s face. “Anything could happen here. You can feel it in the air.”

Eddie has that weird expression on his face, the one that says that he’s trying really hard to look exasperated rather than amused. He’s putting a lot of work into furrowing his brows and making his mouth into a set line. The crinkles next to his eyes and the small upturn of the corners of his mouth betray him. “Rich, the spirit of Springsteen can do a lot, but it can’t make either of us look 21.”  
“Speak for yourself.”  
“You can’t seriously think anyone would believe you’re 21?”

He doesn’t, but if the thought makes Eddie keep looking at him with that adorable aggravated look on his face he’ll pretend he believes it with all of his heart. “Well, why not? I’m tall! I’ve lost almost all of my baby fat! I am still working on the facial hair thing, though. My dad used to tell me I’d never be able to grow a moustache if I didn’t eat my bread crusts and I’m starting to think he might’ve been right.”  
“Okay, you’re tall, I’ll give you that,” Eddie admits. “But, counterpoint: Your glasses make you look younger and you still dress exactly like you did in middle school.”  
“That is _not_ true, I wear ripped jeans now! And besides,” he continues, spurred on by Eddie’s barely concealed laughter. “I may look 17, which, might I add, is totally fine because I _am_ 17, _you,_ my friend, are 5’7 and look like Bambi.”  
Eddie scoffs incredulously. “I do not!”  
“You do! You’re little and cute and you’ve got those big doe eyes.”  
Eddie looks away. “Shut the fuck up, man.”  
“It’s not a bad thing.”  
“Yeah, well,” Eddie says. He looks back up at Richie, and a small smile lights up his face. It might be the low lighting, but Richie thinks maybe he’s blushing a little. “We’ve agreed that you look like a 12 year old with gigantism and I look like a baby cartoon deer, so I’m guessing it’s officially a ‘no’ to trying to illegally buy alcohol.”  
“Yeah, I guess,” Richie grumbles. “Can you imagine getting kicked out of The Stone Pony, though? How fucking badass would that be?”

Richie ignores Eddie’s exaggerated eye roll in favour of admiring the memorabilia on the wall behind the bar. 

“You know,” he says, leaning back a little. “I think Bruce would be proud of us.”  
“Yeah?” Eddie rests his chin on his left hand. "Why?"  
Richie stares back at him. He’s never been good at expressing his feelings, and he especially can’t think of how to explain how he feels right now. “He’d be proud. Because you _did it.”_  
“Did what?”  
“Ran.” Judging by the blank look on his friend’s face, he’s still not getting his point across. “God, okay, um...I mean, we’re kind of literally living in a Springsteen song right now, you know, like you basically showed up at my house like _’baby, this town rips the bones from your back, it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap, we gotta get out while we’re young’,_ except you didn’t call me ‘baby’, obviously, and-and now we’re basically _‘riding out tonight to case the promised land. Whoa, oh, oh, oh, thunder road.'”_

Richie is aware of how pathetic it is that the only way he can properly communicate his feelings is by quoting Bruce Springsteen. He’s honestly a little amazed by how fucking _repressed_ he is. He knew it was bad, but geez. This is a new level. 

Eddie’s still looking at him, smiling softly, and the way that smile makes Richie feel is the only emotion he can put a word to. “You’re ridiculous.”  
“Yup.”

Eddie looks away from him, inspecting the bar for a few seconds before looking back up, staring at the same memorabilia wall Richie had been gazing at.  
He’s not looking at any of it, Richie realises, he’s just staring into space. 

_He’s just tired,_ Richie tells himself. After all, he’d shown up at Richie’s house at what, 3 in the morning? He must’ve already been packing and preparing way before that. Chances are the poor guy hasn’t slept in...days, probably. 

“It feels kinda different,” Eddie mumbles. “The way Bruce sings about it, I thought it would be...I don’t know. More freeing, I guess? It’s like he gets on the road and everything’s fine, you know, he doesn’t have a fucking care in the world.”  
“Well, Eds, you can’t base all your expectations of the world on Bruce,” Richie says, and immediately regrets, because that was definitely not helpful at all, Richie, you fucking idiot.  
“I’m not.” Eddie cuts himself off. “It’s just that…” He lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and scoff and rolls his eyes. “It's stupid but I...didn’t expect to be scared.”

“So…I guess you could say that _‘you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore?’”_ Richie says, because his best friend in the world is baring his soul and admitting something really difficult and he’s an emotionally stunted moron who can’t think of anything to say that isn’t from _Thunder Fucking Road._  
Eddie smiles again, fucking finally. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Eds,” Richie hesitates for a second. Eddie’s swivelled around on his stool, his body facing Richie for the first time, and Richie knows what’s supposed to happen now. He’s meant to say something funny or annoying or stupid, something way too sexual or way too personal, and Eddie’s supposed to slap him lightly and tell him to shut up while he pretends he’s not laughing so hard he can’t breathe.  
Richie’s never been good at figuring out the right thing to say at the right time, but he thinks that maybe a Your Mom joke isn’t the right thing to say here. Even if it is (and he knew Eddie would argue that it never was), it’s not he _wants_ to say. 

“Eddie...you’re really brave. You know that, right? Doing something like this is just...unbelievably brave.”  
Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t know, man, it’s...You did it too, so if I’m so ‘brave’,” he says, putting air quotes around the word. “then I guess you are too.”  
“I only did it because it was you.”  
Eddie looks at him with warm, sad Bambi eyes. “Really?” he says, and his voice sounds so soft, so sweet, so _small,_ and this shit is getting way too emotional for Richie to deal with.  
“Yeah, I mean…” God, why is his mouth so dry? “I, you know, I trust you, and I knew…I knew you must’ve...thought it through, and it would be weird to be in Derry...without you…” Oh, God, he was about to throw up. “...And I did it for Bruce, obviously. I could feel his presence, like a fucking ghost or something, like some phantom Springsteen was leaning over my shoulder and whispering about how tramps like us were born to run.”  
Eddie smiles and cocks an eyebrow, and they’re back to their bickering normality. “You’re being haunted by the ghost of Bruce Springsteen?”  
“Yes.”  
“A man who is still alive?”  
“Yes.”  
“Can you hear him right now?”  
“As a matter of fact, yeah, he’s actually sitting on the bar and leaning down and whispering in my ear, he’s really invading my personal bubble.”  
“What’s he saying?”

Richie moves slightly closer to the bar, furrows his brow, mimicking listening intently to someone. “Okay...mm-hmm...yeah...yeah, I’ll tell him.” He sits up straight again, trying to keep some semblance of composure, which is always difficult when Eddie is giggling and Richie feels like he’s 12 years old and all he can think about is how he made Eddie happy and he feels like he could burst. “He has a message for you.” Richie pitches his voice down, trying to make it gravelly and raspy. “He says _‘show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.’”_  
Eddie stops chuckling long enough to add _“‘You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright.’”_  
“And that’s alright with you?”

They spend hours making jokes and laughing, until they’re interrupted in the middle of what Richie considers to be a rousing rendition of _Badlands,_ and the bartender curtly asks if they’re actually going to order anything. He doesn't tell them to get out, exactly, but his withering stare is enough to get the message across.

As they leave Asbury Park, driving back past Institute Street and E Street, he thinks that maybe if he were actually being plagued by a spectral New Jerseyian rockstar, this whole talking-about-his-feelings thing would be a lot easier. 

7:15pm, November 28th, 1994 

Their motel room boasts decor unchanged since probably the 40s, complete with a set of moth-bitten, holey curtains and suspiciously large spiderwebs. There’s one double bed, strangely short, that he doubts will actually fit both of them. The ratty sheets, lumpy pillows, and carpet caked in dirt really pull together the ensemble.  
The newest thing in the room is an armchair that looks almost exactly like the one Richie’s grandpa used to own before he decided it reminded him too much of the war. Richie makes a mental note that it’s probably the best place in the room for Eddie’s inevitable dirt-induced panic attack.  
“Hey asshole, this stuff is fucking heavy!” Eddie calls, voice accompanied by loud bumping noises as he tries to lug his suitcases up the stairs. “I’d appreciate a little hel- oh.” His eyes land on the armchair, the curtains, the suspicious stain badly hidden by the bed’s headboard. “Ew.”  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”  
Eddie steps a little further into the room. It’s so small that it’s actually difficult to move without hitting anything. “I know we told the receptionist we’d be okay with one bed, but that’s barely even one bed.”  
“I can sleep on the chair. It reminds me of my Grandpa.”  
“No, it’s fine. Wait, why would a chair remind you of your Grandpa?” Eddie shakes his head. “Whatever. We’re not sleeping on those sheets, we’ll _definitely_ get gonorrhea. I’ve got some spare sheets in the car, we can change them.”  
Richie snickers, because _of course_ Eddie brought fucking spare sheets. “You’re always so prepared, Eds. It’s inspiring, really.”  
“They’re hypoallergenic, dickhead” 

They make up the bed (well, Eddie does - Richie is banished to the chair after demonstrating his despicable bed-making skills) and Richie is hit with a weird wave of nostalgia. They’re exactly like the sheets Eddie has at home, and if he ignores the giant spiderwebs and the weird stains he can imagine that he’s back in Eddie’s room doing homework, watching a movie, and falling asleep after stuffing themselves full of junk food. 

Eddie sits himself on the bed and grimaces. “It’s still not _good,_ but I guess it’s better.”  
Richie sits next to him, bouncing on the mattress a little. It’s not even lumpy in a bad way, it’s lumpy in a _suspicious_ way. “Why do I feel like there’s a body stuffed under this?”  
“There probably is. There’s probably a serial killer in the bathroom right now, waiting for one of us to come in so he can brutally murder us.”  
“Not it!” Richie exclaims as he leans back on the pillows. “So, tell me about this aunt. You’ve never told me about her.”  
“I didn’t really know about her,” Eddie says. “Her name’s Kate, she’s my dad’s sister. My mom stopped talking to any of his family a couple years after he died, but a year and a half ago she let slip that she lives in New Jersey. So I went to the library and I looked up Kaspbraks in New Jersey and I found her.” Eddie leans back next to Richie, shoulder to shoulder, his thigh brushing against Richie’s. Richie has to try really, _really_ hard not to think about Eddie’s thighs. 

“And she just...suggested you move in?”  
“No, of course not.” Eddie shuffles a little bit, moving all of millimetre closer. Richie’s whole body tingles. “We’d been writing to each other for a while, and I told her I wanted to go to New York. She told me I could stay with her if I was ever nearby, and that kind of...got me thinking, I guess. So I came up with most of the plan, she looked around for jobs that would hire me without even meeting me, and now here we are.”  
“Here we are,” Richie repeats. Eddie’s foot rubs against his leg and he jolts. “Do you wanna watch TV?” he blurts out, desperate for an excuse to separate his body from Eddie’s before something very embarrassing happens. “I’m gonna turn on the TV.” 

Easier said than done. The thing is _ancient._ He can feel Eddie staring at him, can picture the amused little grin painting his voice as he watches Richie pound on the set and tells him to give up.  
After ten minutes and only managing to pick up one tiny little white square in the upper left corner of the TV, Richie throws up his hands in frustration. “Fine! Whatever! I give up!”  
“At least you tried,” Eddie says. He’s got that stupid grin on his face, gesturing for Richie to sit next to him on the bed again.  
“Fine,” Richie says again. “But without the TV on we’re just two dudes lying on a bed. I’m not saying that’s weird, but I’m not saying it’s _not_ weird.” He cringes inwardly at his own words as he lies down to Eddie. 

Eddie’s staring at him with a strange look on his face. His face is serious and a little dark, his eyes searching.  
“What?” Richie says. “Do I have something in my teeth?”  
“What did you mean back there?” Eddie asks. “When you said you came because it was me?”  
“Um...I guess I just meant...you’re my best friend? And I...trust you?” 

It’s clearly not what Eddie was looking for. His gaze is so intense Richie shivers.  
Richie wants to be honest, to tell Eddie everything he’s feeling, but God, it’s so hard.  
“I meant…” he tries, determined not to say something stupid or quote Bruce Springsteen this time. “It’s...I, um, I really care about you. And...when I said I would’ve missed you and it would’ve felt weird without you, what I meant was that I kind of always wanna be around you and be with you and anywhere you go, I wanna be there too.”  
Eddie’s face softens and Richie suddenly becomes very aware of how close together their faces are.  
“What I’m trying to say is that I...really like you.” It’s not quite the truth. It’s close to the truth. The whole truth is the other L word, and no matter how open he’s trying to be there’s no _way_ he’s saying that. 

“Seriously?” Eddie asks, voice hushed and serious.  
Richie nods, and _wow,_ they’re sitting really close together. Close enough that if Richie moved his hand just a little bit to the right it would be resting on top of Eddie’s thighs, and _God,_ Richie is _so_ into those thighs. That has to be weird, right? No one is _this_ into other people’s thighs. 

Eddie says his name and Richie stares at him, still thinking about his thighs. His eyes are dark, flicking between Richie’s eyes and his lips, and Richie remembers what he had just confessed, and for a second he thinks Eddie might kiss him...but no, no way. Richie’s thought that kind of thing before, and it’s never happened. He’s not getting his hopes up again. 

Eddie leans forward slightly and Richie refuses to think about the possibility of Eddie's lips touching his, eyes fluttering shut, fingers reaching out to trace along his jawline and cup his cheek until it's happening _\- holy fucking shit, it's actually happening, Eddie is kissing him, what the actual fuck -_ and Richie knows that he's ruined forever now because nothing will ever be as good as this.  
He kisses back, worries for a second that it might be too hard, too intense, the way he grasps Eddie’s shoulders and pulls him close, closer, as close as they can possibly be, until Eddie tilts his head and parts his lips and all of Richie’s cognitive functions stop. 

Eddie pulls away first, breathing hard, and Richie is still processing the fact that _Eddie fucking kissed him what the fuck._  
He stares at him for a few seconds, taking in the sight of his best friend in front of him, eyes wide and lips pink and hands still resting on Richie's cheeks.  
He finally breaks the silence, and immediately wishes he hadn't.  
"Yowza."  
Eddie pulls his hands away. _"Yowza?"_  
“Oh, god,” Richie groans, shrinking away from Eddie. “Can we just pretend I didn’t say that?”  
Eddie reaches out and places his hand on top of Richie’s. “Only if you can come up with something better.” 

Richie almost doesn’t hear him, too distracted by the feeling of Eddie’s hand clasping his. 

For as long as he can remember, he’s ached.  
For so many years - he can’t even remember how many, only knows that it’s been _so long_ \- he’s ached for _this,_ for Eddie’s hand on his, Eddie smiling at him, Eddie laughing at him, Eddie being absolutely sick of putting up with him, _Eddie Eddie Eddie._  
Eddie’s starts rubbing his thumb against the back of Richie’s hand, barely moving, so soft he’s barely even touching him, and it sparks that burning ache that’s still there, will always be there, and it’s so tender and loving and so excruciatingly _sweet,_ and he thinks that maybe this ache, this beautiful anguish is just a part of him, beating in the little space between his heart and lungs and reminding him of the miserable miracle of his existence; it tells him that he’s _here,_ that he’s _alive._ That he’s in love. 

He gently reaches out, left hand cupping Eddie’s cheek. Eddie leans into the touch and the ache deepens.  
Richie still can’t express everything he feels, instead electing to smile and say “You’re so fucking cute” with as much emotion as he can muster, hoping against all hope that Eddie will somehow pick up what he means. “Is that better?”  
Eddie shrugs. “Yeah, a little,” and his dopey, wide smile is so bemused and so fucking _cute_ that Richie has to lean in to kiss him again and again and again, drowning just a little with every press of their lips. 

They stay like that for a long time, smiling through chaste kisses. Eddie’s still holding his right hand, his left hand is still cupping Eddie’s cheek. At some point Eddie tangles his free hand in Richie’s hair and pulls him closer and Richie thinks he might die. He kinda hopes he _does_ die, because if he has to die young he wants to die doing what he loves: making out with Eddie Kaspbrak. 

It takes a long time for them to remember that they have to breathe, around the same time it takes for Eddie to realise that he hasn’t showered in more than 24 hours and he’s so grossed out about it that he refuses to touch Richie until after he’s less, quote: "sweaty and grimy and gross", unquote. 

Richie, still in a state of euphoria and delirium, busies himself by asking the uninterested receptionist where he can mail their _Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey!_ postcards. He’s humming to himself, oblivious to the cold, imagining the looks on his parents’ and Mike’s faces when they get the postcards. Maybe they’ll be reassured that the two of them are okay. Maybe his mom will be jealous that he went to Asbury Park without her. Maybe Mike will somehow telepathically pick up on what happened. 

He’s out in an unfamiliar city. It’s dark, and it’s cold, and the world has never been brighter. 

9:26pm, November 28th,1994 

He should’ve known it was too good to last. 

He’s spent the last hour really, truly believing that he’ll get back to their room and Eddie will be sitting on the bed, smiling, and maybe they’ll kiss a little more, fall asleep in each other’s arms, and be on the road the next day, well on the way to starting a life together.  
He was naive enough to think he wasn’t dreaming this time. 

Eddie is sitting on their bed (Richie's heart jumps a little at the thought of _their bed)._ His hair is still damp, dripping a little bit onto the collar of his too loose t-shirt. There are Polaroids spread out in front of him - the ones Richie gave him earlier that day, taken in another lifetime, and the ones they took today, smiling giddily in front of the E Street and 10th Avenue sign.  
Richie notices the design on Eddie’s t-shirt (tour merch from The River Tour in 1980, and Richie has no idea where he got it but he knows he definitely wants one) before he notices the tear tracks running down his cheeks. 

“Eds?” 

Eddie won’t look at him, focusing instead on his hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I think...I think this was a mistake.”  
Richie’s heart stops, his whole body freezing, feeling like the ice has broken under him and he’s suddenly drowning. He tries to keep his voice from shaking when he asks, “What was? The leaving or…” 

_Or me._

Eddie grimaces and looks back at him, bloodshot eyes reflecting the flickering light from the lamp next to the bed. “Why the fuck are you so far away? Get over here.”  
Richie stumbles over to their bed _(their bed!)_ like a fucking newborn giraffe. The mattress whines in protest when he sits next to Eddie, curling his knees under his body. Up close he can see that Eddie’s still crying. He desperately wants to reach out and wipe the tears away, but maybe that would be a mistake, maybe this was all just a stupid mistake. 

Eddie’s hunched over, curled in on himself. “Not you,” he whispers. “Not you, you’re...” He presses his hand against Richie’s, and he’s so relieved he almost sobs. “You’re good, Rich.”  
Now that he knows he can, Richie can’t help touching him, gently brushing his hand over his cheek before moving to stroke his still wet hair. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. So..what’s wrong?”  
“I think we need to go home.”  
Richie’s hand stills, and even as he thinks _“But I_ am _home,_ you’re _my home,”_ he knows it’s not true, not really.  
Eddie moves his head against Richie’s hand, a not-so-subtle indication to keep moving.  
“Okay,” Richie says, resuming his ministrations. “I...honestly, I don’t know what to say.” He scoffs. “I’ve never been speechless before. What a weird feeling.”  
Eddie ignores him, which is fair. “I’m so selfish. I can’t believe how fucking _selfish_ I am.”  
“What? No you’re not.”  
“I _am,_ I’m so fucking…” He lets out a small sob. “My mom must be so _scared.”_

__

_Well, fuck her!_ Richie thinks. _Who gives a fuck about that bitch?_  
“Eddie,” he whispers, trying for a soothing tone and probably failing. “That doesn’t...look, she’s...I mean, my mom’s probably scared too, do you think I’m selfish?”  
“It’s _different.”_  
“How?”  
“She _needs_ me!”  
“No, she doesn’t!” Richie says, immediately regretting how loud he spoke when Eddie flinches. “Eds...she can take care of herself, okay? And so can you. And even if you can’t, you know, that’s...that’s what I’m here for.” He pauses, trying to assess the damage. “We’re gonna be okay.”  
“You don’t know that.”  
“Yeah, I do.” Richie moves his hand, softly placing it on Eddie’s jawline. “We’ve got a plan.” He smiles, adding “And I’ve got you. I’m fine as long as I’ve got you.”  
Eddie’s returning smile is small and hesitant, but even that’s enough for Richie to lean over and kiss his tear-stained cheek. “You’re such a fucking sap.”  
“Yeah,” Richie replies, moving to kiss his temple, his nose, all the little freckles he’s spent years counting. “Just for you, though.”  
"Just for you.” 

__

__

A little while after that, somewhere between November 28th and 29th, 1994 

__

Richie is resting his head on Eddie's chest, his arm around his waist, the steady rise and fall of his friend's body calming him. One of Eddie's hands his hair, the other resting on his forearm.  
Richie is almost asleep when Eddie stirs slightly.  
"Hey, Rich?" he whispers. "You awake?"  
Richie hums in response.  
"I still don't know what I wanna do." 

__

Richie moves up the bed so that his head is resting on the pillows and he's at Eddie's eye-level. He's still got one arm wrapped around him. "S'okay. You don't have to."  
"I'm sorry."  
"Don't be."  
"I am, though. Sorry." He leans forward and presses their foreheads together.  
"We'll sleep on it," Richie suggests. "Figure it out in the morning."  
"Wow, your very first good idea," Eddie teases.  
"Yeah, you proud of me?" 

__

Eddie pauses for a second, eyes searching Richie's face. For what, Richie doesn't know. 

__

When he speaks, it's so quiet and the words are so jumbled together that Richie almost doesn't hear it. "I love you."  
The burning ache comes back in full force, knocking Richie's heart out of his chest, stealing his ability to speak. So he kisses him instead, putting everything he has and everything he feels into the kiss.  
They break apart and Eddie presses his forehead back to Richie’s.  
"Me too," Richie says, a little breathless. "In case that wasn't clear."  
“No, I got it.”  
Richie squeezes Eddie’s hand. “Whatever you decide, it’s okay. I’ll be here.” 

__

They fall asleep like that, with their breath mixing together on the pillow and arms tangled around each other, never letting go of each other’s hands. 

__

* * *

__

After

__

They go back. 

__

It's a tearful few hours, the two of them arguing and crying (and making out, just a little) in a desperate attempt to come to a different decision, despite somehow knowing that it's already been made. 

__

The car ride home is a lot quieter. 

__

They don't see each other for a week after they get home. Eddie's mom is just as furious as they predicted she'd be. When Sonia is finally forced to let Eddie go back to school, everyone ignores the dark purple bruises forming on his arms. Under the bleachers, Richie kisses them.  
Richie's parents assure him that it's okay, that they weren't upset, they were a little surprised, but they really didn't mind. He pretends not to see the relief in their eyes. They pretend not to see the sadness in his. 

__

__

It doesn't necessarily end badly.  
But it does end. 

__

__

A week before graduation, two weeks before Richie leaves for California, Eddie asks "Is your phantom Springsteen still around?" 

__

They're alone in the clubhouse. Richie using his too-long legs in a futile attempt to push himself back and forth on the little swing thing-y, while Eddie lays sprawled across the hammock they've long since given up on sharing. 

__

Richie shrugs. "He's been pretty quiet lately." 

__

Eddie smiles sadly, looking at him the same way he did in that dank little motel room, way back in a different lifetime.  
Richie almost gets up and kisses him, but Mike's supposed to be meeting them soon and he doesn't want to risk him seeing. They've agreed that whatever this thing between them is, they can't let anyone else know - they haven't really talked about it, haven't even referenced it outside of hurried kisses and whispered _I love you's_ when they're sure they're alone.  
Sometimes, Eddie acts like he doesn't even remember. Richie acts like he doesn't care. 

__

"What do you think he'd say?" Eddie asks. "If he were here right now."  
"I don't know," Richie answers.  
Eddie stares up at the ceiling, using his leg to slowly rock the hammock back and forth.  
"What do you think he'd say?" 

__

Eddie frowns at the dirt ceiling. "I don't know. Maybe...maybe _'I ain't a boy, no I'm a man, and I believe in a promised land?'"_

__

Eddie turns back to him, almost like he's looking for some sort of approval. Like he's hoping Richie's personal Springsteen will come back to give them both some more words of inspiration. 

__

"That's perfect." 

__

Eddie smiles.  
Richie aches. 

__

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this for a whole ass month and i'm so relieved to have it finished. it completely changed directions halfway through and turned into some intense Bruce Springsteen stanning, but i'm still pretty proud of it.  
> 
> 
> big thanks to my bff dee and, of course, to Bruce.
> 
> thank you for reading, i hope you liked it xx


End file.
